


soft and sweet

by MacPye



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 20:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19449418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacPye/pseuds/MacPye
Summary: I bought cherries. This happened. First complete scene I ever wrote in this fandom. Relies on the idea that Aziraphale realised helovesloves Crowley in the remains of that bombed out church.The angel has cherries. Crowley's never tried them.





	soft and sweet

_July, 1952_.

Some islands were lying sleepily in the embrace of two river deltas merging into the North Sea on the West European coast.

Crowley had decided to, very, very slowly, start making his way to the Summer Olympics, but, as he was driving north from Calais, he’d found Aziraphale.

Well, not so much found, as “accidentally” run into him.

Really, Crowley was a little bored with July, there wasn’t as much happening, not a lot of fomenting to do, so he thought he might was well find out what Azriaphale was off to do on his own, while he drove to Helsinki.

Two birds, one stone, sort of thing.

One of these things was definitely not an excuse to do the other.

 _Anyway_.

Aziraphale was sitting on a low, red brick wall overlooking a cherry orchard. Crowley could tell it was a cherry orchard, in particular, because there were people in rather archaic folkwear harvesting cherries. So, he figured, it was safe to say it wasn’t, oh, apple trees which were being guarded by brick walls and tall poplars.

The only concession Aziraphale had made to the weather and his surroundings was a wide-brimmed straw hat. The heels of his tobacco coloured Oxfords occasionally hit the wall as he absent-mindedly swung his legs. He was cradling a brown paper bag to his chest.

As Crowley sauntered closer, he saw Aziraphale’s mouth was soft, but a small frown hung around his eyebrows.

“Angel,” Crowley greeted, as if they were meeting, as expected, in St James’s Park. He was sure the gravel road had broadcast his approach, but Aziraphale’s head snapped into his direction all the same.

“Crowley!” Unguarded pleasure broke through the angel’s thoughful frown, his smile brighter than the sun beating down on the orchard labourers. “Whatever are _you_ doing here?”

Crowley executed an elaborate, full body shrug, hands firmly in his trouser pockets in an attempt to remain cool. He was doing his level best to come up with a good enough excuse. “Ah, well, you know, er, hrm, thought I’d see if there were any wiles to shore up while you were thwarting away, etcetera.”

The angel said nothing but looked at him both knowingly and fondly, and something summersaulted in Crowley’s chest. He hastily cleared his throat, eyes looking for a different subject to turn to, and they fell on the brown paper bag Aziraphale was cradling. “What’ve you got there?”

“Oh!” sighed Aziraphale, holding it upen so Crowley could see. “I bought some cherries from this orchard. They’re really rather yummy.” There was something whistful about his tone.

“What are you doing here, anyway, angel?” Crowley frowned, waving away the proffered bag of almost-purple cherries.

Azirapahle’s cherry-dyed tongue flicked over his lips as he wet them, turning away from Crowley, a little cagey. Crowley raised an eyebrow. Aziraphale looked back at him, his eyes darting away from his gaze almost as quickly. “If you must know,” he managed wretchedly, “I was trying to, ah, tempt them away from their work in the orchard.”

“You _what_?” choked Crowley, having intense flashbacks to a very different orchard, about 6000 years ago.

Aziraphale looked to be agonising over it. “They really need to _stop_ working in the orchard and _start_ working on shoring up their defences against the sea!” he wailed.

Crowley’s head swam for a moment. Of course. _Of course_ this angel would try to use a technique of a demon to arrive at the goal of an angel. He never ceased to surprise him. “ _Why_ , though?” he managed.

“The predictions for the upcoming winter weather as projected by Heaven are really rather bad,” complained Aziraphale. “I’m sure they mean to send a warning about it, or somesuch, but I thought I’d take the initiative.”

 _Heaven really doesn’t care about sending warnings, usually_ , Aziraphale thought. N _oah was an outlier and shouldn’t have been counted_. While the thought that the angel wanted to, in a way, prevent a second Great Flood in terms of lives lost, did something in the pit of his stomach, he tried to keep pity from his voice when he asked, “How’s that working out?”

Aziraphale slumped, dejected. “As you can see, they’re still hard at work.” He sighed. “The local language is so finicky, and they don’t seem to be interested in what I have to say about water management and such.”

“Probably a class difference,” Crowley pointed out. “They’ve lived here all their lives, for generations, what would a city toff be able to tell them about it?”

The angel sighed again. “Well, yes, perhaps that’s it. Still, I can’t help but feel that it’ll be a while before they grow cherries here, again, if ever, so I bought some.”

“Never had cherries,” Crowley mused.

Aziraphale perked up. “Really, my dear? Oh, you simply _must_ try these, they’re some of the best I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something!”

Crowley shrugged with his face. “Oh, alright, then.”

Aziraphale held one out by its stem, and Crowley was about to move his hand towards it, when the angel said, “Open up!”

Before he could process what he was doing, Crowley had obediently bent towards the angel, mouth open. Aziraphale delicately popped the cherry in, and its stem snapped off as Crowley leaned back again after closing his mouth.

“Don’t swallow the pit, dear boy,” the angel commented primly, popping a cherry into his own mouth.

Crowley stood still for a moment; his brains had ground to a halt. He had a cherry in his mouth, He felt at it with his tongue, it wasn’t as if pausing to eat it could make the whole situation any more ludicrous than it already was. The skin of it was smooth, the flesh soft and yielding as he sunk his teeth into it. Its juices burst across his tongue - intense, and sweet with the right balance of tartness to it. His teeth scraped across the pit, and he stole a sidelong glance at Aziraphale, who simply dropped the pit onto the ground, directly from his mouth, before sticking another cherry in. Once rid of the pit, the fruit was a small bite, really, and so soft it hardly needed chewing.

If Aziraphale was aware of how awkward Crowley felt, he didn’t show it. “Was it good?” the angel asked him.

“You fed me a cherry,” Crowley commented, slowly, after a short pause.

Aziraphale, still turned away from Crowley, paused rummaging in the bag. He blanched, and, seconds later, a flush crept up his neck from under his shirt collar. “Oh,” he managed, tone strangled. “Oh. Oh, _dear_.”

“You _fed_ me a cherry,” Crowley repeated.

The flush rose higher up, onto the angel’s face, which he kept resolutely turned to face the orchard. His lips had become a small line, his eyebrows twitched nervously in the shade of the hat brim.

“You _fed_ me a _cherry_ ,” Crowley hissed through his teeth.

Aziraphale finally turned to him, apology writ large across his face. “I’m so terribly sorry, dear, I really don’t know what, ah, I was thinking --”

“Do it again,” Crowley interrupted. “It was _delicious_.”

A perfect ‘O’ formed around the angel’s lips. Enthralled, he held out another cherry by its stem. This time, Crowley leaned forward very deliberately, never breaking eye contact as he first closed his teeth, and then his lips around the fruit. When Crowley withdrew, de-pitting the cherry with teeth and tongue, the angel was still holding up the stem.

Crowley carefully spat the pit over his shoulder, onto the gravel behind him, the sound of which brought Aziraphale back to himself.

The angel coughed, fidgeted with his tie, and said, “Well. Ah. That was. Ah. That is to say... I’m glad you like them.”

Crowley hummed. “Are you done here, angel?”

Aziraphale looked around him hurriedly, as if he’d forgotten where they were. “Well, I...”

“See, I’m on my way to Helsinki, tempt some athletes to cheat, sort of thing, and I tought,” Crowley continued casually, “might as well go together.”

Aziraphale’s face displayed a complex sequence of emotions, resting on one which wrenched Crowley’s gut; he looked trapped.

“I really musn’t.” the angel managed, a hint of anguish around his eyebrows, a tinge of regret in his voice, telegraphing that, on a personal level, he might have liked to, but the company had standards he had to obey.

“Alright,” Crowley relented, more gently than he might have intended. “Well, er, see you later.”

It was awkward, and it made him feel strangely heavy to walk back to his car.

After he was well on his way again, he finally glanced sideways at where Aziraphale usually sat.

A brown paper bag filled with dark cherries sat on the seat.

Crowley smiled.


End file.
